By George Robbins
The Marvel Cinematic Universe, or MCU, is now considered to be one of the most expansive cinematic universes to ever exist and will go down as such in the history books. The amount of money that has been made based upon the box office of those movies is staggering and make it easily the most successful movie franchise in existence. Not only the box office but the merchandising that go along with it make it clear just how strong an influence these films have had over the years. The only other franchise with merchandising rights as strong as the MCU’s is the Star Wars franchise which is another cinematic universe controlled by Disney. Needless to say, the success of these franchises mean everything to the company.
All of this being said, there has been a lot going on due to the pandemic as of late and it has been affecting the production of these movies as a whole. Many of the productions being worked on in the MCU have had to be temporarily cancelled until conditions were once again safe enough for people to return to work. Within the past couple of months, these conditions have been met and productions have begun to start back up again. Not only have they started back up again, but there are plans in place in order to allow new productions to begin next year as well. One of the bigger ones that has been mentioned lately was the ‘Ant-Man 3‘ production which is set to start filming in June.
Another MCU production that we just found out was supposed to start in March of 2021 was the production for ‘Black Panther II.’ Unfortunately, it seems that these plans are going to be set back a bit because of the recent unfortunate passing of the lead actor, Chadwick Boseman. Boseman played the titular ‘Black Panther‘ in the film and was a major part of what made that character so great. With his passing, there is now a gap in what they had originally planned, and now they will have to wait a while longer before they can come up with something new for when they start production. Surely they will figure out what they are going to do, but this will not change the fact that the sequel will just not feel the same way as the original did.
By George Robbins
Christopher Nolan is now a household director name due to his work over the past few years within the film industry. A majority of the films that Nolan makes end up going on to be mind-bending films that really get viewers thinking about what they may have just seen on screen. This seems to be the case with his newest movie ‘Tenet’ as well because it has built up a reputation for itself as a mysterious film that sees some form of time manipulation being used. On top of that, it has been made known that the movie is a spy movie that sees agents trying to prevent the start of World War 3. Needless to say, it is a film that many are looking forward to seeing and many people internationally have already been given the chance to see it.
Nolan’s films managed to capture a lot of people’s imaginations when he started truly working on them, but there is one trilogy that made him so well known. That trilogy would be the ‘Dark Knight’ trilogy which helped bring superhero films into the modern day. Not only that, but it revitalized the genre and the DC universe as a whole as it was a self contained set of films that did extremely well with audiences. The story of the ‘Dark Knight‘ movies follows Batman as he took on a number of well-known villains who were re-imagined in a way that makes them much easy to follow along with. To put things simply, his films were incredible and will always remain near the top as some of the best superhero films of all time.
With talks lately of the upcoming standalone film ‘The Batman,’ there were discussions among fans about whether Nolan may return for any more DC character films. Talks were brought up even more by the fact that the newest iteration of Batman is being played by Robert Pattinson. Pattinson just worked with Nolan on ‘Tenet’ and plays a major role in the film. With that in mind, some believed that Nolan may once again take interest in working on another DC film at some point. Nolan has confirmed that he has no plans to return for any DC films, which is no surprise given the fact he has so much creative control over his own films. Therefore, he won’t have to do what others really tell him to do moving forward.
By George Robbins
Disney is by far one of the largest companies to exist in the world at this moment and they control some of the biggest franchises in existence. The Disney Company was started by the eponymous Walt Disney many a year ago and it has evolved into a massive multi-media empire. Within the past decade alone, they have managed to obtain some of the biggest franchise rights in existence. This, combined with the animated films that their studios are known for, has made them catapult to the top of the industry. So now, Disney has become one of the biggest household names nowadays and they are known worldwide.
As of late, they have had a rough go of things due to the pandemic and therefore they have been losing out on revenue hand-over-fist. This has resulted in the company trying to come up with a good way to make back their money that they were losing. Unfortunately, this is to no avail because everything related to the company has been shut down due to the pandemic. Their amusement parks were completely shut down and even though a majority of them are now open again, they have restrictions in place. This is how we ended up with the vast limitations for their parks and the other option they had to decide on was when they were going to put their finished films in theaters.
As already mentioned, Disney is a multi-media empire, therefore they make most of their money from the shows and movies that they produce. Unfortunately yet again, theaters have been shut down since the start of the pandemic and thus, new movies haven’t been able to release. It is only as of recently that movie theaters have begun to reopen their doors to the public and even then, they have restrictions on them. Disney has been able to make up for this a little bit because of their premiere streaming service Disney+ which has hit its stride during this pandemic. It doesn’t make up for most of the money they lost out on, but it most certainly helps them in the long run. The newest upcoming title that will soon be available for people to watch on the service is ‘Mulan.’
‘Mulan’ is the upcoming live-action remake to the original animated film of the same name which follows the titular heroine as she fights the huns in China. The movie was pushed back numerous times due to delays in the reopening of theaters, but it eventually started taking too long. Even though Disney was holding out for a proper theatrical release, they eventually decided to make the film available on Disney+. The thing is, though, that people have to pay $30 on top of their subscription to own the movie. Disney+ is also not available in China, so Disney has decided that they will still give the movie its theatrical release over there and it will be much cheaper by comparison. This decision is one that some people can see a problem with.
Though it does make sense for Disney to release the movie in China if their theaters are readily open and available, the cost for it domestically is seen as being too high. That aside, this is their plan for releasing the film moving forward. The movie is set for its scheduled release date on the Disney+ streaming platform on September 4th. Meanwhile, they plan on releasing the films to Chinese theaters on September 11th, exactly one week later. This is all so that they can maximize the amount of revenue that they can end up making off of the movie and within a week’s time we will know if this strategy of theirs pays off. The movie could just end up being labeled a commercial failure.
By George Robbins
Movie theaters are now trying to get their footing back after having been closed since the middle of March. With absolutely no way of bringing in revenue without selling out seats to people, theaters have had to furlough and lay off employees until they could start making money again. With this in mind, theaters are just a bit happy now that they are able to open up their doors again and they can start making money once again. Whether they are able to actually make a decent chunk of change or not is still unfortunately determined by a few extraneous factors that they have to contend with. The biggest factors being the restrictions that are now in place.
One of the biggest restrictions that theaters are currently facing is the one which limits the number of people that are allowed to be in the theaters at once. This limited capacity ruling is one that has theaters doing their best to sell out every single ticket they conceivably can in order to make money. Thus we have theaters doing their best with what they have and making a lot less money than they normally would. This isn’t going to deter them though, so next they have to focus on being able to open everywhere they possibly can to offset the money lost from the limited capacity rules. Unfortunately, theater companies have not been given the greenlight in every possible region.
Theater chains have not only had to deal with restrictions on capacity but also restrictions on the number of theaters they have been able to reopen. Domestically, the limitations on where they could reopen their doors have been especially difficult to contend with. After a surge in new virus cases, state governments in a number of states have not allowed some public places to reopen yet. This has caused some distress for theaters, especially since new movies are actually starting to come out again. That is how the State of New Jersey ended up having a lawsuit put against it in order to allow theaters to reopen. This ended up not working out the way theater owners were hoping and the state declared that theaters would remain shut until further notice.
The movie ‘Tenet‘ just had its international release this past weekend which exceeded the expectations that people had for the film. Its box office returns ended up being higher than people originally anticipated and it is expected to do even better when it hits domestic markets this weekend. Theater companies therefore want to be able to open up everywhere they possibly can in order to cash in on the film’s release. Thus Regal Cinemas has chosen to reopen in California, New Jersey, and Maryland in order to get more revenue for the release of ‘Tenet’ in the United States. So now, the only thing they can do is wait to see whether they end up bringing in the amount of people they were hoping for.
By George Robbins
Sony is a very well known company with many different facets to its structure as a company in general. For instance, they are not just in the technology business, but also, they are in the movie making business. This is how they have managed to become so prolific within the past decade or so. While half of their movies or so are mostly hit-or-miss, a good number of their films actually have monetary success tied to them. They have done their best over the years to try and expand their library and this has become more noticeable over the past couple of years as time has gone on. They have put a lot more effort into what gets made and it seems like it may end up working out for them moving forward.
The unfortunate thing about Sony is the fact that they usually take something that has had mild to extreme success and they try too hard to make a franchise out of it. This only affects the story quality of their movies though, as a majority of sequels that they make end up being box office successes. One of the parts of their video media division that has had the most success, however, over the past few years has been the animation department. The movies that have been churned out by the animation teams have all looked great on screen and the animations are almost completely seamless. None of their movies proved this more than one of their most recent films, ‘Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.’
‘Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse’ is a film that has been placed on a pedestal for how well done the film is overall, and rightfully so. An extreme amount of effort went into the stylistic choices made for the film which makes it feel unique from every other comic book film. From the individual art styles for all of the different characters to the sound design and music choices for the film, it all looks and sounds like it belongs. It isn’t just any animated movie, it is a “comic book” movie. This means that it was made in a way where every single frame was made in a way that if you paused the film, it would look like a page from a comic book. It has been rightfully labeled a masterpiece and we now know that a sequel is on the way.
The end of the first film left it open for having a sequel, although it isn’t really all that necessary as it didn’t feel like a cliffhanger either. No one is going to complain though because if they do as well with the second one as they did with the first, then it will be great. One of the most important parts of the film, though, is the story which had a lot of effort put into it and it told a very well-crafted story. It should ease people a little bit to know that Octavio E. Rodriguez, story artist for Incredibles 2 and Coco, is now going to be a part of the ‘Spider-Verse 2’ team. This makes it even more exciting to know where this upcoming sequel will be going as the art style and story are what made the film what it is. This just makes it sound like it could end up being better than the first movie, but that is a tough wall to climb, so we will just have to see.
By George Robbins
The movie industry is currently working on their next move now that they know they will be able to show their films to the public in the near and not-too-distant future. In fact, not too long after the pandemic began, studios continued working in some way on upcoming projects that they plan on having come out within the next couple of years. Although studios had to shut down their productions for a few months in order for new rules to made for the set, they worked in the background. This means that while not working on productions, they were working on deals, plans, and scripts for movies that haven’t even been started necessarily. Therefore, there is plenty of news nowadays about films that will be starting up production some time soon.
Many of these projects have been mentioned to the public thus far and they are slowly getting under way with working on them to some degree. For instance, Kevin Smith started working on his script for ‘Mallrats 2’ again after the pandemic began and he is now discussing what he will be doing next for the production. Another example is the fact that ‘Scream 5’ is being worked on and they are even going to be trying to get the film out by some time next year. These aren’t the only examples as another one is the fact that work has actually started on another ‘Tron’ movie after almost 10 years. These are just some of the projects being worked on with even more of them on the way.
One of the biggest movie universes we have had the pleasure of witnessing on screen for over a decade now is the MCU. The Marvel Cinematic Universe spans countless movies and has such a diverse cast of characters that it has easily become one of the biggest, if not the biggest, shared universe in all visual media. This has made it so that any announcements in regards to a new MCU film are seen with open excitement by the general public at large. Even during this pandemic, Marvel Studios is trying their best to keep up by working on their upcoming movies the best they can. Of those upcoming projects, one that we were not really expecting to hear about was ‘Ant-Man 3.’
The MCU films have had just as rough a go of things as any other films because their productions were also completely shut down. Not only that but they also have a movie ready for theaters that they can’t release yet. Therefore no one expected to hear anything about ‘Ant-Man 3’ which wasn’t even on the roster for upcoming MCU films. Director Peyton Reed admitted recently that although the pandemic may be on-going, he is still doing his best to work on the film. He wants the movie to be ready for when they plan on starting production in June of 2021. He even admitted that they plan to have the movie ready for a 2022 release which is even more surprising due to the aforementioned fact that it hasn’t been seen on any kind of upcoming movie rosters. It is a surprise for sure, but a welcome one nonetheless.
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